Saturday, November 29, 2014

The Aerosmith song “Eat the Rich” came on
the radio a couple of days back and it struck me as a deeply problematic song,
which is perhaps to say that

eating the rich strikes me as a really
poor idea.

For one thing, there’s always the problem
of defining who the rich are, and therefore who you should eat. If the rich are just the “one per cent” then
obviously there’s not going to be much food to go around. And once you’ve eaten them, do you then eat
the next richest one per cent, and the next, and so on until there’s just a
surviving one percent that’s eaten all the other 99 per cent? Maybe.

On the other hand “rich” often means simply
someone who’s got more money than you have.
This would mean that Jeff Bezos could consider Bill Gates “the rich” and
would therefore feel entitled to eat him.
The guy in the one-bedroom slum would feel fully justified in eating the
guy in the two-bedroom slum, and so on.

Another obvious problem, as we know, is
that the rich tend to be thin – see Wallis,
Duchess of Windsor (above) and Babe Paley (below), both associated with the remark “you can’t
be too rich or two thin.” So again,
eating the rich is going to provide even less sustenance. (N.B. One of the richest men
in the world is Carlos Slim).

One the other hand, we know that the poor
we tend to be porky. They’re seldom free
range or organic, and certainly not a rare delicacy, so I’m guessing the rich
might be reluctant to eat them.

As always, therefore, we have to turn to
the solid respectable middle class to do the heavy lifting. Yes, they can be picky about what they eat,
but they’re also faddish and easily swayed by new food trends. I’m sure they could be persuaded that eating
both the rich and the poor was a new taste sensation. You would end up with an egalitarian, and
much reduced, population. Hard to see
any downside to that.

Returning to the Aerosmith song, you might
argue that at this point in history the members of the band are definitely
rich, but frankly I can’t imagine that anyone would find Steve Tyler a very
palatable plateful, so I think they would probably have to resort to auto-cannibalism,
which would, of course, be another solution to the problem.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

I was in Miami last weekend, and I know that Miami is a hotbed of good
eatin’, but I was there for a book fair and I knew my opportunities would be
limited. There in the book fair’s
hospitality lounge I ate whatever this is:

some kind of vaguely Cubanish vegetarian sandwich on the right and
devilled eggs on the left. I’m pretty
sure the gourmet powers that be have decided that the devilled egg is hip
again, and that’s OK with me.

And there was a party at the Standard in Miami Beach, and Questlove was
there, comb in hair just in case you didn’t recognize him (and in fact I’m not
sure I would have recognized him
without the comb), and the waiters came round with sliders and things on
sticks, and they were fine, but it wasn’t prime psychogourmet territory.

On Sunday morning, having no eating companion, I went to the local
Publix supermarket which struck me as a rather superior supermarket, and I
admired the look of the canned chorizos in lard, but I didn’t honestly think I
could sit on a bench and eat them from a can .

So I
wandered around in the stinking heat looking for somewhere to eat, and by luck
rather than judgment I ended up in a place called Bin 18. And did I ever strike
lucky. They were serving brunch –
basically poached eggs with various Benedict-ish variations.

But
wait, what’s this on the menu – it says that all their eggs are cooked
sous-vide. Blimey! If devilled eggs are now declared thoroughly
hip, I couldn’t help wondering if sous vide eggs (or sous vide anything) might
be a bit “last-craze.” But they were
damn good. I had the Don Quixote – poached eggs, with two kinds of chorizo (that would be chorizo palacios and chorizo cantimpalo - and no reference to lard)
caramelize onions, hollandaise, and some rosemary potatoes on the side.

A younger version of myself would never have
been able to sit alone in a restaurant with a glass of wine eating alone,
savoring a meal – not even brunch. Some
things do get very slightly easier as you get older.

Monday, November 24, 2014

You know, sometimes I almost like my life. Last week I was in the local Gelson’s
supermarket and there, standing in line, was the more than fabulous Mary
Woronov. That’s her above in a Warhol

screentest. This is her below in Chelsea Girls:

In fact I’ve met Mary once or twice but I wasn’t absolutely sure she’d
recognize me, but I said hello and she did seem to clock that I wasn’t just
some crazed fan bothering her in the supermarket, and I said, “I didn’t know
this was your local supermarket,” and she said, “Oh it’s not. But I walk my dogs up in the park and then
afterwards they get to eat roast beef.” And
she brandished a pack of roast beef she’d just bought at the counter. This is, more or less, how she looks today.

Now, I happen to know how much roast beef costs at Gelson’s deli
counter – basically, if you have to ask you can’t afford it.And, without thinking I said, “Oh, I’ll be
your dog Mary.”How we laughed.

And it occurred to me that this kind of thing just possibly might not
have happened to me if I didn’t live in Hollywood. Afterwards I wondered if I should have said, "No sugar cookies, Mary?" referring to her movie Sugar Cookies - summarized thus on imdv, "A film producer murders his star actress
during an erotic 'game' and makes it look like suicide. The dead
girl's lesbian lover discovers what happened, and plots her revenge." (Guess who play's the lesbian lover). But on balance I'm glad I stuck with offering to be her dog.